The Life and Times of Team Five (remastered edition)
by tombopskei
Summary: three genin get the most unprepared jounin-instructer in all of history but it's ok because he's trying his best. thats it. thats the story. kakashi take notes.
1. Chapter 1

Ryoshi sighed as he sorted through the pile of classwork on his desk. Despite the threats he gave to his students earlier that day, he wouldn't be grading them at all. Graduation was tomorrow and that would be somewhat cruel.

He was an academy teacher, not one of Ibiki's henchmen.

Ryoshi was brought out of his thoughts by a knock on the open classroom window and the sound of a figure slipping in.

"Hey Yoyo." The figure said as they took a seat at the edge of his desk.

"I told you not to call me that." Ryoshi said with a roll of his eyes.

"Well I told you not to give me a genin team."

There was a pause.

"Touché Shidamo, touché."

Shidamo took off his headband and set it on the desk.

"Don't bother getting comfortable," Ryoshi warned as he put the stack of papers in one of his desk drawers, "I'm getting ready to head out."

"What gives Ryoshi?"

Ryoshi smiled. "I figured you'd be the best one for the job."

"Yeah right," Shidamo scoffed. "And what about the hundreds of other jounin out there begging for a bunch of impressionable brats to look after?"

"They don't exist."

Shidamo stretched and let out a yawn. "Well I don't blame em'. Do I at least get to know why you thought it was so important that I get a genin team this year? There's a reason I don't fill out the yearly application forms."

"I already told you," Ryoshi smirked. "You're the best one for the job. Besides, if I told you about your genin team now, then it wouldn't be fair to the other jounins who have to wait until after graduation day."

"Yeah because Tatsuki is definitely getting the team with that weird taijutsu kid."

"After a while you learn that it's best to tell Gai what he wants to know rather than suffer through one of his 'youthful' speeches about the importance of honesty."

Shidamo groaned. "Ryoshi, my sweet Yoyo, please don't keep me in suspense. I'm gonna be spending what could possibly be the rest of my life with these kids!"

"I don't know Shida…"

"Please Yoyo!" Shidamo whined, gripping onto Ryoshi's vest. "I'll even help your class with target practice the next time you ask me!"

"Yeah right, the last time you offered to help you were _conveniently _assigned a mission the day of practice."

"I can't exactly refuse a mission!"

"Because the Hokage really needed you specifically to rescue a cat from a tree."

The Inuzuka held up his hands in defeat. "Ok ok, I lied."

Silence.

"Oh come on Ryoshi! It was self preservation!"

"..."

"_Please_."

"Alright fine." Ryoshi slapped Shidamo's hands away and pulled three folders out of one of his desk drawers. "But only because you asked so nicely."

"You were gonna show me regardless of what I said, weren't you?"

"Maybe."

Shidamo leaned over the desk and pinched his friend's cheeks. "Oh Yoyo!" he whined, "I knew those hellions were changing you for the worse, you used to be so nice!"

"Argh, stop it!" Ryoshi cried as he slapped the jounin's hand away again. He then placed the folders on the desk and spread them out. "Who do you want to start with first?"

Shidamo sat up straight and crossed his arms over his chest. "Let's start with lowest scores and work our way up."

"Alright then."

Ryoshi opened the folder closest to him, revealing a picture of a boy stapled to a large stack of documents.

Shidamo let out a low whistle.

"Problem child?" he inquired as he took the folder and looked over the boy's picture.

Ryoshi chuckled. "You don't even know the half of it."

The boy had tan skin, spiky brown hair, and green eyes. He wore a red jacket with blue and white accents over a white shirt and brown shorts. His Konoha forehead protector was tied around his forehead. His appearance was pretty ordinary overall, the only thing that stood out about him being the small scar under his left eye."

"His name is Takahashi Koji, age 13."

"What can you tell me about him?"

Ryoshi sighed. "The kid's a pain to be honest. He's rude, mean, temperamental, and overaggressive. On top of that, he's got some kind of superiority complex."

Shidamo stifled a laugh as he flipped through the contents of the folder.

"A superiority complex with these grades? Seriously? He's average at best."

"Koji's going to be the first shinobi in his entire family and his parents have it drilled in his head that he's destined for greatness or something."

"Ah, that'll do it."

Ryoshi nodded.

Shidamo sighed.

"On the brightside, since you're a jounin I doubt that'll be a problem and besides his whole 'holier than thou' attitude, he's actually a pretty good kid. Koji puts his all into everything he does. He just needs someone to take him down a notch and push him in the right direction."

"Seriously?" The jounin groaned, putting his head in his hands. "Please tell me the other two aren't as bad."

Ryoshi laughed, taking the discarded folder and pushing it aside. He then handed over another one. This one was significantly skinnier. "That's for you to decide."

Shidamo then opened the file to reveal a picture of a girl stapled to a few documents.

The girl had dark skin, long navy blue hair, and blue eyes. She wore a light blue and cream hooded-jacket over mesh armor and black bike shorts. Her Konoha forehead protector was tied around her neck. Despite the girl's overall blue appearance, the thing that stood out to Shidamo was her eyes. Despite their vibrant blue color they seemed dull.

"Shodome Nami, age 12. she came to Konohagakure three years ago."

"Where from?"

"Kirigakure."

Shidamo's eyes lit up in realization.

When Ichirou Umishodo showed up at the village gates begging for asylum, him and his ward were the talk of the village and subject to heavy skepticism. They moved into a old house in the rural part of Konoha and were supervised by Anbu for the first year that they lived there. Shidamo was put on the night watch as one of his first Anbu assignments.

After a moment of flipping he came across a document that made him squint his eyes in confusion. He turned to his friend. "It says here that she stabbed a classmate with a kunai. That can't be true, right?"

"No that's right."

"What?!"

Ryoshi scoffed and folded his arms. "Don't look so worried. It was just a training exercise gone wrong and if you ask me, what happened that day was greatly exaggerated."

"Well what happened then?"

"Since Nami came from Kiri, she only knew mist techniques when she was finally enrolled in the academy. It was a failure on my part to allow her to participate in the sparring session."

"That still doesn't explain why she stabbed someone!"

"Mist taijutsu is very different from Leaf taijutsu, it's based on speed rather than power. It was just a well aimed swipe that Koji didn't know how to block. Nami meant no harm."

The jounin took a second to think. "Koji huh? I bet he didn't take that lying down."

"Not at all." Ryoshi sighed. "Koji did the exact opposite. He felt as if Nami had disrespected him."

"Something tells me that that's not the end of the story."

Ryoshi sighed once more. Leave it to Shidamo to be able to read him like a book.

"Rumors...began to spread about Nami."

"Rumors?"

The chunin nodded. "People began to say that Nami did it on purpose, that she had some kind of motive. The whole class ostracised her. They began judging Nami based on the rumors they had heard about Kirigakure, calling her things like "mist freak' and 'the monster from the Bloody Mist'."

"Poor kid."

"Nami was already a quiet kid, she didn't really fit in with the other children and the incident only made it worse. She went from quiet to almost nonverbal in a matter of weeks."

Shidamo clenched his fists in anger, almost wrinkling the folder in his hands. "Why wasn't anything done? This girl was obviously suffering."

"There's only so much I can do about the pack mentality of the shinobi occupation. If I spent more time with Nami than my other students, i'd be accused coddling and favoritism."

Shidamo let out a resigned sigh and handed the folder back to Ryoshi. "Is there anything I need to know about her personality-wise?"

Ryoshi shrugged. "Nami distanced herself from the everyone after the incident. The only thing I can really tell you for certain is that she's very observant."

The jounin groaned, running a hand through his hair. This genin team was shaping up to be a chore and he hadn't even met them yet.

"Ready to continue?"

Shidamo sighed and pick up the last folder. It was almost as heavy as Koji's. "Ready as I'll ever be."

He opened up the folder and gazed upon a picture of another boy.

The boy had fair skin, chin-length red hair, and violet eyes. He wore a green hoodie and brown pants. His Konoha forehead protector was tied around his head like a hairband. Shidamo noted the all too familiar smirk on the kid's face. It was exactly like the one Shidamo remembered having across his own face when he was in the academy.

The jounin ran his hand through his hair a second time and turned to his friend. "Seriously, you put a prodigy on my team?"

"Yup," Ryoshi exclaimed with a smile that Shidamo thought was a little too bright to have good intentions. Seriously, what did those demons disguised as children do to him?!

"His name is Ishimoto Kenta, age 12, and he's ranked second in the class."

"I won't be dealing with two superiority complexes, will I?" Shidamo whined. The one was enough.

The chunin rubbed the back of his neck, a small tick that Shidamo knew from years of friendship to mean that luck was not on his side.

Of course.

"The kid's an absolute brat." Ryoshi stated, leaning back in his chair and letting out a huff of air. "It still amazes me that he somehow managed to pass at all."

Shidamo's bangs fell in his face has he cocked his head in confusion. Ryoshi was really serving up contradictions today.

"Kenta was a very fast learner and picked up on my lessons quickly but when it came time to demonstrate what he learned or take a test he failed miserably."

"Well that's just stage fright or testing anxiety."

Ryoshi shook his head. "No, it was like he was purposely trying to fail."

"Huh?!"

The chuunin shrugged and began putting the folders back into his desk drawer, "Your guess is as good as mine."

Shidamo groaned and put his head into his hand, letting out a muffled scream.

"Is it too late to go rogue?"

"I already told Tsume. She promised to hunt you down if you tired to get out of this."

A thud echoed throughout the classroom as Shidamo slammed his head down on the desk. Why was this his life?

"Aw Shidamo," A muffled giggle. "I'm sure it'll all turn out fine."

"Eat a branch Ryoshi!"

The chuunin laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

Koji Takahashi was mad. He was enraged. You could even say that he was heated if you wanted to be more down with the lingo.

Why?

Because his sensei was late.

"This is bullshit!"

"Yeah we get it, you've only said it about 20 times."

And he got stuck with the worst possible teammates.

Koji turned to face the redhead lounging in the back of the empty classroom and glared.

Kenta Ishimoto. It just had to be Kenta Ishimoto.

Koji wouldn't say that he hated Kenta, it was more of a strong dislike- never mind who was he kidding? He hated the kid with every fiber of his being. It was so bad that sometimes being in his vicinity gave him migraines. Migraines! He was only 12 for crying out loud!

Koji massaged his forehead. How did he pass anyway?

Everyone in the class was there to witness Kenta completely and utterly fail the graduation exam. His henge was pitiful, his attempt at the body replacement jutsu made even the exam proctors hide a giggle, and he slept through the entire written portion of the exam! Kenta got donuts across the board no matter how you looked at it yet here he was, on Koji's team and annoying the boy with his very existence!

The boy in question stretched and let out a yawn, his (ugly) red hair all over the place from his nap. "Maybe we should just leave and try again tomorrow. I got things to do."

Koji bristled. The absolute _nerve _of this guy.

"We're not leaving! Ryoshi-sensei said he'd show!"

"And you're just gonna blindly trust whatever he says?"

"He's our teacher!"

"That doesn't warrant undying loyalty though, for all we know this could be a test- one we're currently failing by sitting here like losers."

Koji balled up his fists. Oh how he wanted to punch him.

"Why don't _you _just leave then?"

"Well that wouldn't make me a very good teammate now would it?"

The urge to punch him increased.

"I have an idea," Kenta rose from his seat and leisurely walked to the front of the room, choosing to lean against against the teacher's podium instead. "Let's have a vote."

"And how would that help? It'd just be a tie."

"Last time I checked, 3 made up a genin team." And with that Kenta grabbed a piece of chalk off the podium and went up to the chalkboard.

Oh right._ The freak_.

Koji looked at the girl out of the corner of his eye. He forgot she was there with how quiet she was.

"Alright!" Kenta said and turned around. On the board he had drawn a happy face and a sad face with a tally under each.

"I vote leave," He pointed to the tally under the happy face. "and you vote stay." He pointed to the sad face.

"Why do I get the sad face?!"

"Because your plan is sad." Kenta shrugged.

Koji rose from his seat in anger. That was it! Kenta was getting punched, _hard_.

"Hold your horses, we haven't even gotten our final vote, Nami what do you think?"

They both turned to look at the kunoichi of their team. She turned around from where she was gazing out the window and shrugged.

"Is that a shrug for yes or a shrug for no?"

Nami shrugged once more and turned back to the window.

"She not going to say anything. It was stupid to think she'd be smart enough to answer anyway." Koji sneered.

Kenta shrugged and rubbed at his chin. "Maybe."

He looked at the board, shrugged, and put another tally under the happy face.

"What the hell! She didn't even vote!"

"I like to believe that the shrug was open to interpretation."

Koji growled and ran forward, grabbing a fistful of Kenta's shirt in one hand and readying a punch with the other. "I hear one more stupid thing outta your mouth and i'm gonna punch your lights out."

Kenta's lazy smirk quickly slipped off his face, a more serious expression quickly replacing it.

"I'd like to see you try." His tone was cold. It almost made Koji shudder.

_Almost_.

"Ok that's enough of that." The genin jumped way from each other at the reprimand. They turned to see a man and a large dog standing in the doorway.

"Meet me at Yakiniku Q in five minutes."

-o-

"Now then," The man said after placing an order for drinks and a plate of beef tenderloin. "Introduce yourselves."

Silence.

"Wow, don't all go at once."

More silence. A sigh.

"I guess i'll go first. My name is Shidamo Inuzuka and this is my partner Chika," He reached under the table and pet the dog on the head. "I'm your jounin sensei."

Koji looked closer at the jounin. He looked pretty average if you asked him. Shidamo had unruly brown hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail and the beginnings of stubble on his chin. His eyes were black and the only thing out of the ordinary about him were the distinctive red markings of the Inuzuka clan on his cheeks. If it wasn't for the jounin flak jacket zipped up over his uniform Koji would not have taken him seriously.

Shidamo leaned back into the comfortable seating of the booth and smiled. "Tell me about yourselves, I want likes, dislikes, the works."

Kenta leaned forward and put his head in his hands. His smirk reminded Koji of a cat. "I'd rather not freely give out information when we know nothing about you."

"Touché," Shidamo grinned, the typical canines of the Inuzuka glinted in the light of the restaurant as he did so.

"Like I said before, the name's Shidamo. I like dogs and dislike snakes, my favorite food is beef cutlet, and in my free time I like to visit the vet clinic. How about you?"

"I'm Kenta Ishimoto. I like and dislike a lot of things, my favorite food is very delicious, and I do a lot with my free time."

"I get the feeling you're gonna get on my nerves."

"You'd be wise to follow your gut."

The two stared at each other from across the table for a moment before Shidamo turned to face Koji. "Your turn kid."

"I'm Koji Takahashi. "I like comics and I hate annoying people. My favorite food is sata andagi, and in my free time I hang out with friends."

"Sata andagi's not a food."

"No one asked you tomato-head!"

Kenta shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eye. "I was just adding my input."

"Fu-"

"And what about you?" Shidamo said, cutting off Koji's shout. People in other booths were starting to look in their direction and that was not something he needed.

The girl rose her head from where she was leaning under the table to pet Chika.

"Don't bother." Koji huffed. "You won't get an answer."

"Why not?" Shidamo asked, tilting his head.

"She doesn't talk."

"I think that's up to her to decide." Shidamo turned back to the girl. "You got a name blue?"

The girl ducked her head, her bangs falling into her face and covering her eyes. "Nami Shodome."

"Well Nami, it's nice to meet you."

Nami nodded and quickly leaned back under the table to continue petting Chika. The niken let out a small bark of delight.

"Well now that we're done with introductions, let's get down to business. You're not genin yet."

"Huh?!" The genin exclaimed- well Koji exclaimed, Kenta nodded as if Shidamo said the obvious and Nami hadn't looked up at all.

"What do you mean we aren't genin? We passed the exam!"

"No, you passed the first part of the exam. The second part is tomorrow."

"What's the test going to be?" Kenta asked, leaning back to make room for the waitress to set down their drinks and the plate of meat. "Is it something we need to study for?"

Shidamo nodded to the waitress in thanks as she walked away and took a sip of his drink. "Don't worry, it's not a written or oral exam."

"Then what the hell is it!" Koji seethed.

Jeez. Shidamo didn't think the news would make the kid that mad. He certainly didn't remember being that upset.

"I'm afraid it's a surprise!"

The look that came across Koji's face made him inwardly flinch. If the kid popped a blood vessel, was that on him?

Shidamo sighed.

"Look, I don't feel like doing this either but you guys failed the test I gave today so there's no other choice."

"What test?!"

"We didn't look for him." Kenta interjected, his face stuffed with freshly grilled beef. "We were supposed to question the orders we were given, right sensei?"

Shidamo stared at the red headed genin and reluctantly nodded

_Ryoshi wasn't kidding when he said this kid was a prodigy_.

"See Koji," Kenta started, swallowing the last of the beef and looking up at the boy with another cat-like smirk. "I told you your plan was sad."

Shidamo barely caught the kid in his attempt to lunge across the table.


End file.
